Dual Core Gaming Fix Guide

Step #3 using ImageCFG along with the latest processor driver did the trick for me with BF2.
 
Hi all-
I've tried getting help on the blizzard open tech support forum, but nothing so far. Here's my situation:
I just built a new computer: Athlon X2 4400+, GeForce 7600, SoundBlaster X-Fi, 2 gigs of RAM, etc.
I've installed all the newest drivers for all my hardware. I bought Warcraft III, and started playing the training campaign (Orc prologue). I get through the first mission fine, and start the 2nd. It begins with cutscenes with you speaking...Between each 'cut' (where the picture changes or the person speaking changes), my computer just sits and locks up for about 15-20 seconds. Then it goes to the next cut and does the same thing. So it is taking about 10 minutes to get through the intro.
I hit 'esc' to get through it, so the real mission starts. The narrator starts telling me what to do with my peons - each sentence he speaks (where it tells you what to do next), I lock up again for about 15-20 seconds. So he'll tell me to send 1 peon to gather gold, I lock up. 20 secs later, the game speeds up, I order my peon, narrator comes on again and tells me to create more peons, I lock up again. Once, I got kicked out with a BSOD that said I had a Stop error with NV4_DISP.DLL. I know that's my video card driver, so I downloaded a driver cleaner, totally wiped out my drivers, cleaned, reinstalled them. But I'm still having the same lockup problem. The video test completes fine for both OpenGL and Direct3d.

My virtual memory is on, it's at 2036 megs I think. I have a newer computer I just built, so everything is on a fresh install. I've run antivirus checks and spyware checks (a-squared and ad-aware), and I'm clean. I've even defragmented and run a registry cleaner to no avail.

I think it has to be a problem with my video card drivers, or else this dual-core problem. I've run Driver Cleaner, and tried older and beta drivers also with the same results.

Here's the really weird thing: I can play NEW games, like Oblivion, Battle for Middle Earth 2, and the SpellForce 2 demo fine...but older games like SpellForce 1 and WarCraft III cause the lockups. When I tried Diablo II, I was locking up instantly when the game actually started (in town). I ran the video test and passed and it recommended Direct3D, but I moved the bullet to DirectDraw 2D and then it worked perfectly. Does that help with anything?? I tried WarCraft III in windowed mode, locked up. Tried it with -opengl mode, locked up.

I followed all the steps from this thread, did #1, #2, and #3 (with the WinLaunch XP program), and #4. Still locking up in these two games (well, small lockups, then it continues.) I can play in about 5 second bursts, and it locks up after 5 seconds each time. I tried to Alt-Tab out of the game, open Task Manager, go to processes, right-click .exe for your game, and go to Set Affinity. Set it for just one of the cores.
Here's my problem. I'm logged in as an administrator, but when I do this, I get a warning "Unable to Access or Set Process Affinity. The operation could not be completed. Access is denied." Can anyone help me figure out how/why I'm getting this message, and how to get around it? Maybe the WinLaunch isn't working either, since I can't even manually Set Affinity. I installed the newest AMD driver, and my boot.ini has the correct line in it. I've also edited my registry and have the Throttle key added. Any help would be much appreciated!
 
It appears both my SpellForce and my WarCraft III .exes in the Process viewer of the Task Manager must be setting themselves as System processes?? I don't know what to do, they show up but they won't let me Set Affinity on either one. I can't figure out how to change what type of processes they are, so nothing is working for letting me set them to a single processor. Anyone with more brainpower than me know how to change what 'type' of process they are so I can set their affinity?
 
diablobryan said:
It appears both my SpellForce and my WarCraft III .exes in the Process viewer of the Task Manager must be setting themselves as System processes?? I don't know what to do, they show up but they won't let me Set Affinity on either one. I can't figure out how to change what type of processes they are, so nothing is working for letting me set them to a single processor. Anyone with more brainpower than me know how to change what 'type' of process they are so I can set their affinity?

It sounds like you're having a problem with your video drivers and dual core? Which ones are you using?

Also, IIRC, my War3.exe showed up ok, and I was able to set the affinity :confused: .
 
I'm using the newest drivers posted on nvidia.com (newest certified drivers). I also installed AMD's chip driver from their site.

I'm using Windows XP Pro. When I start up WarCraft III, I minimize with Alt-Tab, and bring up Task Manager. I go to processes, and war3.exe shows up there. But when I right click and try to set affinity, it tells me that I can't. Any ideas? Thanks for trying!
 
diablobryan said:
I'm using the newest drivers posted on nvidia.com (newest certified drivers). I also installed AMD's chip driver from their site.

I'm using Windows XP Pro. When I start up WarCraft III, I minimize with Alt-Tab, and bring up Task Manager. I go to processes, and war3.exe shows up there. But when I right click and try to set affinity, it tells me that I can't. Any ideas? Thanks for trying!

I had to use a program launcher for it now that I think about it. I posted it in the OP, but I can't remember what it was called right now :). Win2000 Launcher or something. I had to do that with both Diablo2 and War3.
 
Has anyone had dual-core problems with Oblivion, or do you have info on which fix/es (applied with other games in mind) work the best with Oblivion?
 
Just got my Opty 170 yesterday and BF2 crashed (total reboot of the machine) after about 3 minutes of playing. The rig is Prime Stable (12 Hours) at 2500 so I'm assuming I need to try another one of these fixes. Already did the AMD drvier and MS hotfix. I guess the next stop is single processor affinity-ville :D

Jeez I hope it works.
 
Shark-MegaByte said:
Has anyone had dual-core problems with Oblivion, or do you have info on which fix/es (applied with other games in mind) work the best with Oblivion?

I haven't heard of any problems (yet)
 
I have experienced some "Benny Hill Effect"-like behavior and instability in Oblivion and am trying to narrow down the cause. This is made more complicated by the fact that I have a 7900gt ko sc from Evga. I RMAed my original because it was artifacting (washes of solid gray covering large areas of the screen, and 'thorn' lines radiating from npcs). When I got this one and it was unstable, I started to think "argh, another bad card" but caught myself and thought I'd do some more testing before jumping to that conclusion. This dual-core issue caught my attention.

When I underclocked my card, especially the memory, the game seemed to run much more stable.

However, today I have been trying some gaming at factory clocks (580mhz core/790mhz memory) with cpu affinity set to Core 0-only in Task Manager. The first time I tried to set Oblivion's cpu affinity, it crashed. The second time, it accepted the change and I went on to have a very nice session for an hour or two... there was only one pause for about a second, which may have come from moving between outdoor areas.

Need for Speed Underground 2 definitely benefits from setting cpu affinity to Core 0. The Benny Hill Effect was slight but apparent at 100+mph in Explore mode, and on a small Drift track, play actually sped up dramatically almost like a playback on fast-forward. Running on Core 0 only, all exploration and races are smooth as silk.
 
I was a highly skeptical about building my first AMD and Dual Core system when I started reading this thread. However, as games aren't the only reason for my new PC, I bit the bullet and built my new machine a week ago (specs below).

After installing XP, I actually intsalled the AMD patch and Microsoft Dual core hotfix (Step #1 and #2 in this guide). I figured they would do no harm.

I'm happy to say I have not experienced any problems with Call of Duty 2, Doom 3, Farcry, NWN, SW Empire at War, Tomb Raider Legends, Battlefield 1942, Morrowind.

I'm yet to try Dawn or War, WCIII, FEAR.

... But, I LOVE being able to finally truely multitask :D The other day I was rippinng 2 diferent DVDs, copying files over the network and on the net all at once. Another time I was re-encoding a DVD, using Photoshop and the net.... Even being able to Burn 2 diferent DVD's at 12x and 8x .... CPU not even breaking a sweat, and I'm probably not even pushing it ... freaken sweet :D

BTW.. I use a G5 Power Mac at work but my PC at home ROCKS! :eek:
 
Guys need help,

i have problems with FEAR,on my opteron 165, BSOD when run say 10 - 20 seconds like at , no drivers can help, nor game patch the bugs is nvidia dual core optimisation is not functioning correctly with system dual core driver(IMHO)

i purchase a spare venice 3200+ and try FEAR again, it works flawlessly, only much slower.

damn , i am super piss, before my latest driver 80.xx from nvidia my dual core works too with my 6800gs, then i upgraded to 7900gt which oldest driver is 84.21, tat dont even have proper dual core support in FEAR.

i tired 84.xx to 90.xx non works. disable dual core drivers, set cpu affinity, disable grahpic dual core support in regedit, all no go.......except change to single core cpu....
i only wish i can use the 70.xx series driver.... bug free....

any help guys??

Amd64 Opteron 165 DFI N-force 4 Ultra-D 2GB (1gb x 2 )Gkill F1-4000 PC4000 XFX GeForce 7900GT EX ED Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music 160GB WD HDD and 80GB WD HDD Nec 3540b dvdrw Fortron 600w Epsilon SLI Certified Psu Viewsonic 19“ va1912W Logitech MX510 Microsoft Internet Keyboard
 
hwoarang5 said:
Guys need help,

i have problems with FEAR,on my opteron 165, BSOD when run say 10 - 20 seconds like at , no drivers can help, nor game patch the bugs is nvidia dual core optimisation is not functioning correctly with system dual core driver(IMHO)

i purchase a spare venice 3200+ and try FEAR again, it works flawlessly, only much slower.

damn , i am super piss, before my latest driver 80.xx from nvidia my dual core works too with my 6800gs, then i upgraded to 7900gt which oldest driver is 84.21, tat dont even have proper dual core support in FEAR.

i tired 84.xx to 90.xx non works. disable dual core drivers, set cpu affinity, disable grahpic dual core support in regedit, all no go.......except change to single core cpu....
i only wish i can use the 70.xx series driver.... bug free....

any help guys??

Amd64 Opteron 165 DFI N-force 4 Ultra-D 2GB (1gb x 2 )Gkill F1-4000 PC4000 XFX GeForce 7900GT EX ED Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music 160GB WD HDD and 80GB WD HDD Nec 3540b dvdrw Fortron 600w Epsilon SLI Certified Psu Viewsonic 19“ va1912W Logitech MX510 Microsoft Internet Keyboard

Did you reformat after your dual core install or are you still running off of a previous install of WinXP?
 
yah fresh install no go, tried all sort of thing, yesderday, i put in my spare cpu ,3200+ it works nicely , just tat single core damn slow only...

weird, seriusly need help from fellow dual core users~~~~
 
now using the latest official,before that ta most stable one found on dfi street, 702bt was it, i dont recall...

it strange every other games, albeit direct 3d or opengl games works flawlessly, only fear on d3d dont , if i use my spare venice 3200+ it works nicely....

so should i seek help from nvidia or vivendi... i tried posting in both forum, non, provide much help... haiz..
 
Multi-core systems are really going to change many aspects of gaming. Hopefully it will make games "better" not just more graphical speed and resolutions.
I really enjoy trying to get every once of power out of the computer for no higher ideal than gaming.

Here's my dual dual core and I do manage over 200fps on doom 3,
2560x1600, ultra, 4x, etc

I brake 300fps on Painkiller BOH with the same rez.

spec:
Dual Dual Opteron 285s
Tyan K8WE motherboard
16 GB Ram
Quad SLI xfx 7950 572/1556
Ageia Physx PPU
(4) Seagate 750GB SATA 300 drives RAID 0 ~ about 3 terabytes
8GB RamDrive- virtual
Dual linked power supplies
Apple Cinema 30inch @ 2560x1600 res
Windows Server 2003 64-bit












 
hwoarang5 said:
now using the latest official,before that ta most stable one found on dfi street, 702bt was it, i dont recall...

it strange every other games, albeit direct 3d or opengl games works flawlessly, only fear on d3d dont , if i use my spare venice 3200+ it works nicely....

so should i seek help from nvidia or vivendi... i tried posting in both forum, non, provide much help... haiz..

Are there any patches available for fear you haven't installed?
 
man, i am really sick now, been weeks i try to look for solution but fail, argh how on earth can it be like tat,

any dual core opteron with nvidia card user faces this problems?? please help
 
venturi said:
Multi-core systems are really going to change many aspects of gaming. Hopefully it will make games "better" not just more graphical speed and resolutions.
I really enjoy trying to get every once of power out of the computer for no higher ideal than gaming.

Here's my dual dual core and I do manage over 200fps on doom 3,
2560x1600, ultra, 4x, etc

I brake 300fps on Painkiller BOH with the same rez.

spec:
Dual Dual Opteron 285s
Tyan K8WE motherboard
16 GB Ram
Quad SLI xfx 7950 572/1556
Ageia Physx PPU
(4) Seagate 750GB SATA 300 drives RAID 0 ~ about 3 terabytes
8GB RamDrive- virtual
Dual linked power supplies
Apple Cinema 30inch @ 2560x1600 res
Windows Server 2003 64-bit













Talk about insanity...... Don't get me wrong here guy I also have a sickness for the latest and greatest hardware but you put me to shame. Money really doesn't matter as I'm lucky enough to have wife bringing in 2K a week from law firm but man looking at your setup....

It is just interesting to see all this nice wood and the setup in the middle of the room without some banging 5.1 Klipsch, or actually like a 1000watt 5.1 home theater with Creative DTS-610 theater connect..... I'm also on a 30" LCD 2560x1600 but running 2x7900 GTX cards pushes frames well over 60fps with max everything. 16GB ram? please tell me you actually utilize this for some type of business purposes that wouldn't work with 2-4GB LOL

This isn't a jab just admiration at what you did but having to say I'm puzzled at the very weak speaker system, it is obvious you have some loot from the floors and desks very nice cherry wood?

I remember seeing your post somewhere months ago when you were trying to buy some 7900 GX2 cards from overseas to put that rig together I remember looking into that mainboard before buying my A8N32-SLI.

Curious, did not even see the X-FI sound card in there... Are you really a gamer? The Physics card really has no support right now which is why it is absent from my system. Grats on getting your dream machine going did you use the beta drivers to get SLA working with the 7950 GX2??

Oh and I'd think you'd be doing 32xAA instead of 4x if you are running 200fps

ASUS A8N32-SLI Bios 1205 S939 | AMD X2 4400+ Retail @ 2.75GHz (250x11) | 2gb OCZ PC4000 Gold GX | 2xBFG 7900 GTX SLI @ stock | 2x74G Raptor Raid0 & 200GB Maxtor Backup | LG DVD / CDRW | NEC DVD DL 16x | Thermaltake Tsunami Dream 3x120mm 2x92mm high 104+ CFM per fan| 700w OCZ GameXStream | Thermalright XP-90C
 
Okay, so right now here are my system specs.

Pentium D 930 Dual Core 3.0GHz
2GB DDR2 SDRAM
GeForce 7600 GT OC PCIe
Soundblaster Live! 5.1

-- The problem I have been having as you probably guessed is that 10-15min into any game, primarly CS 1.6 is what I play, the computer freezes up with the sound looping. Sometimes I have to reboot and sometimes it comes back to the game, but just to do it again in a few minutes. This is an issue with the video card and dual core processors, according to many threads i've read on many fourms, including this one.

-- I have tried all the fixes, unfortunately none of them worked for me, downloading the new 91.31 BETA Drivers lets me play for a little longer before it happens. But still the same result.

-- I have 5 more days to return my GeForce 7600 GT, which is probably what im going to do, no point spending $220 on a card if this is what I have to deal with.

-- Any suggestions on which PCIe card I should buy that will definately not have any problems with a dual core processor? I'm willing to spend $200 - $300, and do not care if its NVIDIA or ATI or any other company, as long as its a PCIe and will support HDTV via DVI and high end graphics.
 
I suppose you could try a different video card, but first see what happens if you alt-tab and set the affinity manually.
 
kirbyrj said:
I suppose you could try a different video card, but first see what happens if you alt-tab and set the affinity manually.


already tried that, I'm returning the 7600GT in about 30min, then driving up to microcenter and getting a X1800GTO -- i'll let you guys know how it works out
 
divxman said:
already tried that, I'm returning the 7600GT in about 30min, then driving up to microcenter and getting a X1800GTO -- i'll let you guys know how it works out

$300 or less in some places will get you a 7900 GT (overclocks really well too) which will blow that X1800GTO out of the water. Can't help you on that CS issue though BF2 is my FPS and makes CS look like garbage IMO. However with BF2 I am trying the /usepmtimer in the boot.ini and not yet convinced it will solve my issue, was disconnected from a server last night but only once. Might just remove the entry and go back to setting affinity manually. The MS hotfix is not what most people think it is for, it is for cool n quiet functionality and laptop power states during the speed up and slow down.
 
I got a X1800GTO and everything works fine, i've been playing CS 1.6 / Source for the last 2 hours, not one problem, not one freeze, its definately an Nvidia issue.
 
divxman said:
I got a X1800GTO and everything works fine, i've been playing CS 1.6 / Source for the last 2 hours, not one problem, not one freeze, its definately an Nvidia issue.

Yes but unfortunately that X1800 is only school technology, if you play a newer game (CS yuck) like BF2 or upcoming BF2142 or Fear etc you'd want the 7900 GT for 250-300$
 
pentium said:
Yes but unfortunately that X1800 is only school technology, if you play a newer game (CS yuck) like BF2 or upcoming BF2142 or Fear etc you'd want the 7900 GT for 250-300$


All good, doesnt apply to me, all i play is CS 1.6 mostly, sometimes i play source, but rarely. Anyway, my advice to whoever is having this problem, eBay your Nvidia, and get an ATI.. life will alot less stressfull.
 
divxman said:
All good, doesnt apply to me, all i play is CS 1.6 mostly, sometimes i play source, but rarely. Anyway, my advice to whoever is having this problem, eBay your Nvidia, and get an ATI.. life will alot less stressfull.

Well you didn't really know what you had purchased, the 7600GT is not in the same league as the X1800 series, what was in the same league last gen was 7800 series Nvidia and X1800. Now the 7900 GT is the same price and blows it away for the mainstream market, high end market totally belongs to Nvidia again with 7950 GX2 since it is dual cards with 1Gb total ram on 2x7900 GT and you don't need an SLI board it is single slot for $599 msrp, HOT stuff. Quad SLI for $1200 for those guys like me with 30" @ 2560x1600, smooth as silkness. Sticking with 2x7900 GTX though until G80 is out.
 
pentium.

you are correct in the lack of proportionally appropriate speakers. I also use the onboard sound.

I do have an XFi card but I can't get their drivers to work well in 64-bit...

I do appreciate fine sound, I wish I could get the right driver support.

For my main system I use B&W 802d speakers with Lexicon matched 7 series amps for each speaker, MC12 processor and the r 20 DVDaudio SACD player.

so... yes... the pc needs better speakers....
 
venturi said:
pentium.

you are correct in the lack of proportionally appropriate speakers. I also use the onboard sound.

I do have an XFi card but I can't get their drivers to work well in 64-bit...

I do appreciate fine sound, I wish I could get the right driver support.

For my main system I use B&W 802d speakers with Lexicon matched 7 series amps for each speaker, MC12 processor and the r 20 DVDaudio SACD player.

so... yes... the pc needs better speakers....

LOL $12,000 for a pair of speakers and $4,570 for an amp. Proportionately given my household income between my wife and I you must be on a 250k+ a year salary to justify those type of purchases. It must aggravate you to be using onboard sound and ultra-cheapy speakers?

Also why 3 TB of storage??? Why not get 4x150GB 10,000 RPM Raptors actually to have the "ultimate performance" SCSI Ultra 320 card with 4xRAID 0, 15,000 RPM Seagate Cheetahs 3.6ms access time. Now Raid-0 with 4x15K RPM would be screaming fast and I mean with money not a concern why not? No one uses 3 TB after all and if you did just use EXT-SCSI to a terrastation box.
 
how do u set affinity?


i do wat it said and all it comes up with is:

End Process
End Process Tree
Debug(but i cant click it)
Set Priority
 
venturi said:
For my main system I use B&W 802d speakers with Lexicon matched 7 series amps for each speaker, MC12 processor and the r 20 DVDaudio SACD player.

For flat-as-cardboard PC sound? :rolleyes: Dude, get a Nottingham + Van den Hul analog rig or something.
 
Shadow265 said:
how do u set affinity?


i do wat it said and all it comes up with is:

End Process
End Process Tree
Debug(but i cant click it)
Set Priority

If you don't have "Set Affinity" the CPU is only a single core or Windows is only recognizing one of the two cores.
 
i'm planning to get a dual core AMD processor but after looking at this i'm kind of rethinking if i should because one of my primary games that i play is WoW which on the first page says there are issues.

are there still issues with the newest AMD drivers?
 
I haven't seen many issues with WoW with newer video drivers and the hotfix.
 
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